page_title: List of ecoregions in North America (CEC)
section_title: Climate change
hierarchical_section_title: List of ecoregions in North America (CEC) / North American Deserts / Climate change
caption_attribution_description: English: Bailey's Pocket Mouse (Chaetodipus baileyi) is a species of rodent in the Heteromyidae family. It is found in Mexico and the United States.
context_page_description: This list of ecoregions of North America provides an overview of North American ecoregions designated by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) in its North American Environmental Atlas. It should not be confused with Wikipedia articles based on the classification system developed by the World Wildlife Fund, such as List of ecoregions and Lists of ecoregions by country.
  The commission was established in 1994 by the member states of Canada, Mexico, and the United States to address regional environmental concerns under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, the environmental side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Commission's 1997 report, Ecological Regions of North America, provides a framework that may be used by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academic researchers as a basis for risk analysis, resource management, and environmental study of the continent's ecosystems. Ecoregions may be identified by similarities in geology, physiography, vegetation, climate soils, land use, wildlife distributions, and hydrology.
  The classification system has four levels.
context_section_description: North American Deserts, as in most arid systems, experience water and temperature change as the most limiting factors in this ecoregion. Climate change's major effects thus far have been an increase in average annual temperature as well as an increase in average annual rainfall.
  The most prevalent factor is the increase in rainfall events and the severity of the events. Between 1931 and 2000, there have been measurable increases in seasonal rainfall during the summertime monsoon in the southern United States and northern Mexico. Because of this increase in rainfall, changes in the vegetative cover have caused native species to disappear and invasive species populations to rise. The kangaroo rat, which also supported Mojave rattlesnake and burying owl populations, has essentially disappeared from the Chihuahan Desert, while the non-native Bailey’s pocket mouse has colonized the area. Increased rainfall has also led to decrease in soil quality and less vegetative cover, which leads to increasingly higher temperatures. In the Sonoran Desert, anthropogenic land degradation as well as natural erosion from increased rainfall has caused a 4–5 degree increase in average afternoon temperatures, which means for many species less available water and nutrients they need to survive. These effects will lead to less biodiversity in the area, which is one of the main combatant factors that biota have against climate change.
  As the effects of climate change continue to develop, North American Deserts will be increasingly affected, leading worsening biodiversity loss and decreases in the ecoregion productivity. Deserts are one of the most delicate ecosystems, relying on limited water and nutrient sources to survive. When these careful relationships are disturbed by the unpredictable and worsening effects of climate change, it will be very hard for these ecosystems to recover or endure.
caption: Bailey's pocket mouse
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